Poland

Poland is parliamentary republic in Central Europe. Historically, it has been prevented from becoming a regional power because it shared borders with far stronger nations Prussia (later Germany) and Russia (later Soviet Union). At various points in its history, Poland has been partitioned entirely off the map, most notably in 1795, when it was divided up by Austria, Prussia, and Russia. Poland was reconstituted as a puppet kingdom by Germany and Austria-Hungary during World War I. The victorious Entente powers established the country's independence as the Second Polish Republic in 1918. It became a casus belli for World War II when it was occupied and partitioned once again by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in 1939. It emerged several years later as the socialist People's Republic of Poland within the Eastern Bloc, under strong Soviet influence.

During the Revolutions of 1989, communist rule was overthrown and the Third Polish Republic was established.

The map of Poland has changed drastically over the centuries, mainly due to the various partitions, causing Poland to slide gradually from Eastern Europe to Central Europe, although where the two regions divide precisely is open to interpretation. The most dramatic example of this is the comparison of the pre- and post-WWII maps of the nation, of which it is often said with some truth that "Stalin pushed Poland westward." Thus, the capital city Warsaw, formerly near the western border of the country, is now closer to the eastern border. The current Polish borders (in effect since 1945) include a sizable Baltic Sea coast, whereas some previous Polands were landlocked.

Despite these attacks, the Poles remained crucial Soviet allies as they drove through West Germany. However, as the war started to turn against the USSR from mid-1951 on, Poland became more restive. Finally, in May 1952, an open rebellion began.[8]

The Poles fought bravely but their forces were trained and armed for a repeat of World War I. They were quickly overwhelmed by the Germans using new weapons such as panzers and doctrines they couldn't match. While both Britain and France declared war, they did little but skirmish on the western frontier. As Poland neared defeat, the Soviet Red Army attacked from the east, nominally to restore order but in fact to split the country with Germany.[11]

After Germany invaded the Soviet Union, Poland in its entirety fell under German rule until 1945, when the advancing and victorious Red Army drove all the way to Warsaw.[12]

Poland was "liberated" from NaziGermany by the SovietRed Army at the end of World War II. The Soviet Union quickly began finding sympathetic communists to administer the country. Polish officials also took additional steps of expelling and relocating the ethnic Germans that lived within Poland's newly created borders.

In 1916, Germany established a client Kingdom of Poland on historically Polish territory that Germany had conquered from Russia.[15] There was little doubt that Poland did what Germany told it to do.[16]

Poland saw pogroms against the Jews in the 1930s.[17] In 1941, Poland became a partial casus belli for the Second Great War, when the Russian Empire began pressing Germany for concessions in its former territory.[18] When war actually came, Russia invaded Poland's neighbor (and fellow puppet), the Ukraine.[19]Entente propaganda claimed that the citizens of Poland rebelled against the Germans.[20] However, by 1943, it was clear that Germany was going to hold the Ukraine, and Poland was never directly threatened.[21]

Fearing Soviet designs against its territorial integrity, the Second Polish Republic, under the loosely defined rule of Marshal Edward Smigly-Rydz, entered the Second World War as a German co-belligerent, being the only consistent ally Germany had for the duration of the war, ultimately to Poland's detriment.

Initially, when war broke out in October 1938, Poland played a peripheral role, indirectly aiding Germany's efforts against the USSR and Czechoslovakia, another traditional enemy of the country. As German forces were driving through Czechoslovakia, Polish forces crossed the border and annexed the Czechoslovakian mining town of Teschen, which they maintained had always been theirs by right, but which the Czechs had taken themselves at an earlier date. (For their part, the Czechs maintained that the land had always been Czech but had been stolen by the Poles.)

Though not openly allied with Germany, Poland saw the importance of maintaining good relations with the Germans. Among other things, this led them to accept war refugees from Czechoslovakia, but to consider them "displaced persons" and keep them detained indefinitely. In the winter of 1938, fearing that holding the DPs would anger the Germans, Poland sent them to France, where a Czech government-in-exile had formed, by way of neutral Romania.

Many Poles also shared the Nazis' anti-Semitism and believed asinine theories about Jews being responsible for the destruction of world culture. However, Poland had no official antisemitic policies, and its Jewish citizens were formally equal citizens, though often encountering prejudice and some forms of discrimination.

By December 1938, however, the Soviet Union had made its desire for war with Poland clear by blaming Poland's "semi-fascist" Marshal Rydz-Smigly for hobbling the USSR's efforts to fight Germany. The Soviet Union also accused Poland of persecuting the Byelorussians within its borders, and seeking to avenge the Polish-Soviet War, declared war in the last days of the year. In response, Poland formally allied herself with Germany on 31 December, and allowed German troops to enter Polish territory.

Overall, the Polish Army was quite behind the other belligerents in terms of weapons, tactics, and technological advancement. Although the Polish Army had tanks, they had a comparatively small number. Their cavalry still rode on horseback. What the Poles lacked in resources, they attempted to make up for in bravery. Stories (likely apocryphal) spread throughout 1939 of cavalry charges against Soviet tanks. Both the Germans and the Soviets grudgingly admitted that the Poles were indeed courageous and able soldiers.

Throughout the summer of 1939, the Polish-German alliance kept the Red Army out of Warsaw. However, a purge of military leaders overseen by Joseph Stalin in the last months of 1939 brought new blood to the Red Army, and December saw a successful breakthrough, with the push bringing the Red Army to the outskirts of Warsaw.

New hope came for the German-Polish alliance in mid-1940 when Germany was able to broker the Hess Agreement with its enemies, Britain and France. The so-called "big switch" saw Britain and France end their war with Germany and initiate a war with the Soviet Union. This new coalition in short order drove the Red Army back out of Polish territory, and began a drive towards Smolensk. While the drive never reached Smolensk, as first Britain then France withdrew from the USSR and returned to war with Germany in 1941, the drive was deep enough that Warsaw was never threatened with invasion for the remainder of the war.

The Polish alliance was important enough for the Nazis to compromise on their antisemitic principles. German soldiers in Polish territory were strictly ordered not to molest Polish Jews (though they did horrible things to Jews in the conquered Soviet territory). These circumstances allowed German combat pilot Hans-Ulrich Rudel to conduct a brief love affair with a half-Jewish woman in Bialystok, which would have been illegal in Germany itself.

With the changing fortunes of war over and the increasing German retreat throughout 1942 through 1943, it became possible for Soviet bombers to reach and bomb Polish territory. To help them repel such such air raids, Germany provided the Poles with Messerschmidts instead of the obsolete planes which the Polish Air Force had until then.

The war in Europe finally ended in 1944, when the Committee for the Salvation of the German Nation assassinated Hitler in April and immediately sued for peace.[23] While Germany did attempt to repay Poland's loyalty through the peace process, Marshal Rydz-Smigly had no choice but to give into Stalin's original demand and give up the city of Wilno and its environs.[24]

On the other hand, while Germany had to give up other occupied countries, the 1938 dismemberment of Czechoslovakia remained in force, and Germany remained in possession of Bohemia and Moravia. By default, Poland kept Teschen.[25]

Faced with the bitter news that his country would remain occupied, Vaclav Jezek planned to go to Poland, slip over the border into Czech territory with his enormous sniper rifle, and make trouble for the German occupiers.

Over the next year, German rule in Poland was draconian and oppressive, especially toward the Jews, who were forced to live in ghettos such as those in the cities of Warsaw and Lodz. By May 1942, the Germans had already begun to send Jews to concentration camps, where they were murdered en masse.

When the RaceinvadedEarth, they quickly drove the Germans from Poland and began administering it themselves. Both Poles and Jews were divided in their loyalties: One option was to support the Race in its war against the rest of the humanity; the other was to support their old enemies, the Germans and the Russians.

During negotiations of the Peace of Cairo in 1944, the Race pressed both Vyacheslav Molotov and Joachim von Ribbentrop to allow it to colonise Poland. Molotov agreed, not least of all because neither trusted the other and both were fearful that Poland run by anyhuman government could provide a flashpoint for another Russo-German war. Ribbentrop, under strict orders from Hitler himself, belligerently refused anything less than Poland's return to Germany. However, after a German plot to reignite hostilities by detonating an explosive-metal bomb in Lodz was thwarted, Ribbentrop sheepishly accepted the proposal. Poland became, along with Spain and Portugal, one of the Race's few Europeancolonies.[26]

Both the Poles and the Jews became comfortable under the Race's rule, though ethnic tensions between the two persisted and the Poles in particular resented the Race for denying them their own nation. Both factions maintained their own independent militia forces, and the leaders of both militias agreed to support the Race against either the Germans or the Soviets should another round of fighting break out.

In 1965, Germany invaded Poland, touching off the Race-German War of 1965. True to their word, both the Jewish and Polish militias offered their services to the Conquest Fleet. They provided the majority of the Race's infantry forces on the Polish front. Although it was on the winning side, Poland's larger cities were devastated by German atomic bombs.